Looking for career advice

[Stikman]

G’day all,
I’m looking for some advice as to what rating I should do – instructor or instrument. I’m unable to travel up north due to personal circumstances, and need to be Melbourne metro based. I’m 45 years old, gained my CPL late last year, and have around 1300 hours TT.
TIA

[MaxFL360]

only option would be instructor rating, no chance of getting a charter gig in the melb metro area unless you have some decent multi time behind you.

[neville_nobody]

Given your age and a lack of mobility I would suggest that a career as an instructor is pretty much your only option unless you are well connected one way or another. Even then I doubt that Instructing will pay the bills in Melbourne.

[Squawk7700]

Given your age

The OP is 45, not 70. Age should not be relevant as he will bring along far more life experience than a 20 year old.

[mcgrath50]

The OP is 45, not 70. Age should not be relevant as he will bring along far more life experience than a 20 year old.

But being tied to Melbourne he probably has various commitments that make the only charter available to newbies without amazing connections, that is basically P2F, unattractive.

+1 for instructing :ok:

[IFEZ]

Stikman,
Couple of things :- What is your 1300TT made up of..? If its all SE piston then that won't help much (although its better than someone with the bare 200TT). Also, without wanting to pry about your personal circumstances, unless you're financially secure or you have a partner earning a good wage, trying to live on a GR3 instructors wage in Melbourne is pretty much impossible (especially if you have financial commitments such as kids, mortgage etc). Its a common dilemma. You'd need an instrument rating to get a charter job, but they'd also be looking for decent multi time as already stated. If you really are tied to Melbourne then I'd say the instructor rating would be your best bet. If you're lucky enough to get a job with a good school that offers progression through the ranks, then you will get the opportunity to work your way into multi and IFR stuff soon enough. Just be sure that instructing is really what you want to do. Its not for everyone. Can get a bit tedious after a while, and there's nothing worse than the booking sheet getting totally wiped out for the day due weather! Still, if you can cope with the (especially early on) low pay and you have a passion for instructing then go for it. I wish you well whatever you decide.

[DeltaT]

It is very much a fork in the road for you financially.
If you want to move ahead then an IR at the least opens the way to multi time if you were to get a charter job. Though more difficult to get.
An instructor job will see you stuck on single engine for quite some time and then you are going to have to shell out $ to progress to multi anyway...
Do a casual walk around to some of the charter outfits and have a talk before committing to either path, see what they say. Given your predicament to being tied to Melbourne, that could infact be your selling point for some of these charter companies as being a longer term employee.

[gfunc]

I got my instructors rating last June and I'm in a similar boat to you in that I am tied to the Melbourne region.

So far, I've yet to have a sniff of a job - I regularly suit up and visit the local schools in person and speak with the head honchos. They either don't need instructors or only want the Grade 1 multi IFR guys. Just look at the AFAP jobs page recently. Of the four on my course only one is employed as an instructor - he worked for the school before the course in another capacity and is only doing 1-2 hours per week.

From what people tell me there has been a substantial drop off in the amount of instructing work over the past year or so and schools in the Melbourne region are struggling. I'm not sure if this is true everywhere, but I guess this is likely tied to the nationwide economic slow down and the overall uncertainty.